1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of near field communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system of communicating personal health data in a near field communication environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Near Field Communication (NFC) is used in devices for communicating with other devices in a network range of less than 10 cm. Typically, in an NFC system, user applications can read or write information from or to NFC tags. NFC tags are static in nature and do not have capabilities for dynamically processing of data stored in it. Generally, NFC tags are powered by a radio frequency field generated by an active NFC device and are able to respond to requests from the active NFC device.
A standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) referred to as ISO/IEEE 11073 enables communication between medical devices and external systems. Personal health devices that are complaint with ISO/IEEE 11073 standards can communicate with each other using the ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 communication protocol. The ISO/IEEE 11073 standard defines an ‘agent’ as a node that collects and transmits personal health data to an associated NFC manager and ‘manager’ as a node that receives personal health data from one or more agents. Exemplary managers include a cell phone, a health appliance, a set top box, a personal computer system and the like. The ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 standard defines the communication protocol between the NFC agent and the NFC manager.
Typically, an NFC manager (i.e., ISO/IEEE 11073 manager with an NFC Read/Write Interface) and an NFC agent (i.e., ISO/IEEE 11073 agent with an NFC tag) communicate in an NFC reader/writer mode using an NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) message. The NDEF message can be any one of type, text, a Uniform Resource Indicator (URI), an image, a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) type, etc. In the NFC reader/writer communication mode, NDEF messages are exchanged between the NFC manager and the NFC agent using the tag transport protocols.
Generally, the NFC agent and NFC manager exchange a sequence of ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 Application Protocol Data Units (APDUs) for association, configuration and exchanging of measurement data. This involves series of request and response exchanges between the NFC agent and the NFC manager.
Usually, when an NFC manager writes a request into an NFC tag residing in an NFC agent, the NFC agent reads the request stored in the NFC tag and writes a response to the request into the NFC tag. The NFC manager reads the response written by the NFC agent from the NFC tag. However, in the event that the NFC agent delays the reading of the request from the NFC tag, the NFC manager reads the request written by itself and considers the request as a response from the NFC agent due to the limited capabilities of the NFC tag, leading to connection setup latency and communication overhead.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.